The John Lennon Collection

The John Lennon Collection is a retrospective compilation album of John Lennon's solo music, released in 1982 (see 1982 in music) by Parlophone, through EMI and by Geffen Records in the United States. It was the first Lennon album to be issued following the singer's death in 1980. The album includes most of Lennon's hit singles and various selections from the majority of his solo albums recorded with EMI from 1970-75, as well as all but one of his tracks from his final album Double Fantasy, which was initially distributed by Geffen Records in the US (EMI acquired the distribution rights to Double Fantasy in 1989).

The selections on the first half of the album are similar to those on Shaved Fish, Lennon's 1975 compilation album that the singer compiled himself, but without "Cold Turkey" and "Mother" (this was replaced with "Love", another track from the Plastic Ono Band album) and "Woman Is The Nigger of the World" (nothing from Sometime In New York City was included). The second half of the album includes Lennon's cover of "Stand By Me" and many of the songs from Double Fantasy.

In the United States, the album was issued with a slightly different track listing, with "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and "Stand By Me" excluded (the former possibly because unlike in the U.K., this single release was not a hit in the States and did not even chart there). In 1989, after EMI acquired the rights to the Double Fantasy material, The John Lennon Collection was remastered and reissued worldwide with two bonus tracks for its CD release, "Move Over Ms. L" and "Cold Turkey" (the former being the only officially released Lennon track previously unavailable on any U.K. album, the latter the only U.K. hit single originally excluded from the compilation). "Move Over Ms. L" was the more notable inclusion — it was recorded in July 1974 during the Walls and Bridges sessions and released the following April as "Stand by Me"'s B-Side. Keith Moon went on to cover the song on his lone solo album Two Sides of the Moon.

In the U.S., the 1989 CD re-issue of The John Lennon Collection not only included the two bonus tracks but also the two songs originally excluded from the U.S. release, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and "Stand By Me" (these were also thought of us as 'bonus tracks' in the U.S.), thereby making the track-listing now identical in both countries.

As Lennon's first posthumous release, The John Lennon Collection did extremely well, reaching #1 in the UK and peaking at #33 in the US where it would eventually reach triple platinum. In the UK, "Love" was excerpted as a single (featuring a version of the song without the slow fade-ins) and managed to reach #41.

The front and back covers for The John Lennon Collection were taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz on 8 December 1980, the day Lennon was murdered.